Bone flail of Kievan Rus (when the find is fire, but the sale is unsuccessful)

Just yesterday I caught my eye on one lot that caught my attention because the item was sold there a thousand years ago, but the price was less than $10. I decided to wait until the end of the auction to see how much this artifact would be bought for.

The digger was selling his find – a bone flail of the KR painted with ancient symbols. Length 120 mm, weight 140 g.

What’s interesting: in the treasure hunting community, the word “flail” has a slightly different meaning than it actually has. As Wikipedia says, a flail is “a flexible-jointed edged weapon with impact-crushing action.” But for us diggers, this is the shock load itself, which is attached by a suspension to a wooden handle.

As a rule, flails are found made of bronze, but here this artifact was dug out of bone using a metal detector.

How did a digger discover this flail with the help of a detector? And everything turns out to be simple – in the hollow part of the bone there is a steel pin, on one side it is riveted, and on the other it has an ear.

This flail was found using a metal detector Minelab E-Trac. According to the digger, he got it from a depth of a meter in a place that was broken by various detectors. There were still remains of a thin steel chain on the ear, which fell off during transportation.

It’s a pity, of course, but a bone that has lain in the ground for almost 10 hundred years has irreparable losses.

I think it was this condition that determined the final cost of this artifact. The bone flail was sold for $30. Is it a lot or a little for such a thing, let everyone decide for themselves.

Great find? Looks like it! All finds from the times of Kievan Rus are of great interest to collectors. We collect everything interesting about Kievan Rus here.